Ansari calls for increase in indices of human development

India

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Published: Tuesday, November 20, 2007, 20:03 [IST]

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New Delhi, Nov 20 (UNI) Advocating the need for creating a caring society in modern India in which the healthy takes care of the weak, Vice-President Hamid Ansari today called for an increase in the indices of human development on global parameters so that a shape can be given to a vibrant economy and any future projection regarding the country does not seem wishful thinking.

Dedicating to the nation Vardhman Mahavir Medical College building on the Safdarjang hospital premises here, Mr Ansari said the country may have made quantum leaps in all important fields but health care has not seen the kind of development it should have.

Though in the last ten years the affluent got access to better health services, the poor has had to put up with whatever was available, he bemoaned.

Catering to a billion-plus population needs health services on a ''gigantic scale'', so it was high time India trained its focus on human development so that any projection for the country, which is a fast developing one, does not seem ''wishful thinking'' but instead became ''realistic anticipation'', he asserted.

The Vice-President said for human development, water, sanitation and other areas had also to be focused on so that a healthy force of human resources could be created for giving a shape to a ''vibrant economy'' and a developed nation. For this, a caring society would also play a vital role in which the healthy would take care of the weak, he asserted.

Union Minister of Health Anbumani Ramadoss, who was also present on the occasion, said what the country today needed was qaulity doctors who could provide quality services and there was also a need for expanding and improving health infrastructure which is social-oriented.

Showering accolades on the National Rural Health Mission, Dr Ramadoss said the scheme had yielded good results within the two years of its launch and efforts were afoot to make significant changes to the rural and urban health care scenario in the country under which health officials would try to reach out to more and more far-flung areas, which hitherto have been reeling under the deficit of health care.

He also underlined the point that only a few years ago the poeple of the country used to go abroad for major surgeries, but now a stage has come where people from all corners of the world have started coming to India and a concept of medical tourism has emerged on a grand scale.